Dave Aitchison was well known in the triathlon world as a vibrant, fun guy, who also just happened to be a pretty damn good athlete. Sadly Dave's life was cut way too short when he died in his sleep following an undetected heart condition. Since his death the Dave Aitchison SportsAid Fund has been set up and there have been (and continue to be), several fund-raising events taking place to race money for this very worthy cause.

One of those events takes place this August, and what an event it is! Four very fit and committed ladies; Emma Williams, Parys Edwards, Natalie Creswick, Jessica Taylor will set off from Land's End and relay their way all the way to John O'Groats. They hope to do it somewhere between 48-hours and 64, but whatever time they do and however tough it gets they will certainly have some fun along the way. I caught up the the team captain, Emma Williams to find out more about their LEJOG challenge.

AE Emma, you and your team of three other ladies have a tough challenge ahead of you, how's the preparation going for your big departure from Land's End on the 7th August going?

EW The preparation is going well. I began organising the challenge back in March by asking the team if they were interested in joining me! I wasn’t worried about the training side of things since all of us were training pretty hard for our races for this summer anyway. Natalie and I are only cycling now and so we were training quite intensively on the bike. Natalie is racing with the Twickenham women’s team in the national road race series, and I was training for La Marmotte. Jess and Parys were in full training for their big triathlons and duathlons this year. Jess was training for the Barcelona half Ironman and Parys, the European age-group champs amongst others. So training was covered!

AE Give us a little bit of sports background about yourself and the other team members?

EW All of the team have great sporting backgrounds. I started my sporting life as a rower. I began rowing at the age of 15, and rowed at University at Imperial College, where I met Jess and we rowed together for three-years. I did my degree and PhD at Imperial and now work at Shell.

Jess and I, as mentioned, met at Imperial and we rowed in many races together. Before rowing Jess was a swimmer and fenced for Wales. Now she concentrates on triathlon. Jess also did her degree and PhD at Imperial and now works as a post-doctoral scientist at Breakthrough Breast Cancer in Fulham.

Parys is from South Africa, but now works in Wimbledon at Physio SW19 and is also a physiotherapist to the England Women’s U-17 football team. Parys' sporting history is in Hockey, playing for Zimbabwe and South Africa. Now she is concentrating on duathlons and triathlons. In June she won the overall age-group race at the Windsor Triathlon!

Natalie is a supervisor at ChildLine and in the past participated in a range of sports including athletics, hockey and rowing! Since moving to London she has been racing in triathlons but found her legs in cycling this season - either winning or coming in second in seven out of the ten races she has competed in this year including winning the South East region road race championships!

The team are all members of Ful-On Tri triathlon club based in Fulham and will be racing the LEJOG as Ful-On Tri.

AE And what about your support crew, or will your team of four be multi-tasking?

EW We decided that due to the considerable distance and time to be completed by each member of the team on the bike it would not be possible to support as well. So we have recruited four drivers and a physio to be our support team for the event. They will be taking turns to drive the vehicles, help with changeovers, nutrition, kit etc.

The preparation for arranging the support team, support vehicles, food, drink, the route and sponsors needed quite a bit of work, but we are now pretty much there. We are being sponsored by Prologue bikes who are providing their van to follow the incumbent cyclist and carry all equipment. They are also providing lots of kit and equipment. We are also sponsored by Physio SW19, who are not only providing treatment free of charge to the team but will also be sending a physio with the support crew.

The other element of the preparation was to gather momentum behind the fundraising. I arranged a Justgiving site to be set up linked to the Dave Aitchison SportsAid Fund and that has been live for a couple of months now. We have also been arranging sponsorship from larger companies to provide financial support. Mercury1 and Freedman International, two different companies Natalie and I knew have pledged some money to help us on our way which is really wonderful!

AE What kind of specific training are you doing to help prepare you for the challenge of riding nearly 1000 miles in two days?

EW As mentioned already the training element of the challenge is coming quite naturally to us. All of us are racing over relatively long distances which requires long cycles for preparation. During the month of July the team are still racing but also training together over long rides. I am competing in La Marmotte which is 174 km and 5000m of climbing, so I think distance wise I will be set! A couple of us are also doing 50 and 100 mile TTs.

AE It's only 48-hours, but if you're taking it in turns to ride two hourly intervals there's not going to be a lot of time to sleep for two days, is that something you can pre-prepare for?

EW Well 48-hours is the high-end target, we are expecting to go up to 64-hours. It all depends on the weather, traffic, and good luck! With two hour intervals that gives us six-hours off to rest and try to get some sleep. Obviously on day one, getting to sleep in this interval may be quite hard, but we are expecting that getting to sleep on the second day will be relatively easy! We are considering splitting the cycle strategy into different sections depending on the time of day. We may only do one hour intervals during the day to keep the speed up. We may consider doing this at night too, but it will depend on how everyone is feeling. As during the night, one hour intervals does not give much rest, however, spending two hours on the bike when you are sleepy and tired, not only could be dangerous, but may also slow us down. So it will all depend...

AE It seems as if you've picked the perfect time; right in the middle of the racing season and hopefully with warm weather

EW Yes you are right. The date of the event basically times with races and training for those races. We were quite careful to pick the right time! But the whole team are so adventurous and a little crazy it all adds to the excitement!

AE The official Road Records Association record for rider on a conventional bicycle is 44 hours, four minutes and 20 seconds, set by Gethin Butler in 2001, as a team you could be pretty close to this time?

EW Well we thought that it could be possible, but we have heard of men's teams going slower than that but it is hard to find team records to be honest. To go 48-hours will be an average speed of approx 18.2 mph and 64 hours would be 13.7 mph. So I guess it depends on our route on how fast we can go, but we believe we are capable of going somewhere in between the two.

AE Has LEJOG been done by an all women's team before and if so do you know the record?

EW We don’t believe so, like I said above its quite hard to find records, and I have asked on the CTC forum about women’s team records and nothing came up. We believe we will be the first, but are happy if someone can help us out with that!

AE If there is a record will you be trying to beat it or is it just about finishing?

EW We will definitely be trying to beat it!

AE As the team captain was it you who came up with the idea of a bike ride from Land's End to John o' Groats?

EW Yes it was very much my idea. I came up with it a couple of years ago, but never got around to organising for one reason or another. One of which was a rather nasty cycling accident I had back in May 2007. I was out cycling in Spain with group one, which was Jess' group. I lost control going down a hill and came off my bike, pretty much using my head as a brake! I was in hospital for two weeks while I recuperated from my severe head injuries, and began talking and walking again. I was off work for two months. I really wanted to mention that I would be dead if it wasn’t for my helmet (so take note those of you that bike without helmets). After that it took a while to get training and racing again on the bike. This accident really put things in perspective and really made me want to do something exciting, but also raise awareness of cycling as a really great way to improve your fitness and have fun with your friends! But maybe there was also a slight bit of craziness in there too!

The team and I also really wanted to raise money for the Dave Aitchison SportsAid Fund, as he was a member of our triathlon club but also because he was an inspirational athlete and such a nice guy. The SportsAid fund provides support for young triathletes. This is close to the heart of all the team since we all know how hard it can be trying to compete at a high level when you are young. This is the other part of the challenge, to try to raise as much money as possible so we can help as many people as possible!

I didn't have to ask the girls twice they are all as crazy as me.

AE The triathlon world lost a great athlete when Dave sadly past away very prematurely in 2007. You've already mentioned the Dave Aitchison SportsAid fund, tell us more about the fund?

EW The fund was set up in memory of Dave, a rising star in British Triathlon, who died suddenly in January 2007, aged 29, from an undetected heart condition (arrhythmogenic ventricular cardiomyopathy). Dave was a strong cross-country runner as a schoolboy and developed a passion for cycling as a mountain biker at University before moving into triathlons where he really excelled. As part of the Herbalife Triathlon Academy coached by Bill Black, in his first year of competition Dave won the age-group race at both London Triathlon and London Duathlon before taking Bronze at the World age-group Championships in Lausanne and being named British Triathlon's age-group Triathlete of the Year 2006.

The Dave Aitchison SportsAid Fund was set up to assist talented young triathletes in the Triathlon London and South East regions to succeed in the sport. Athletes who receive funding must be identified and nominated by the British Triathlon Federation based on their talent and sporting results. Applicants must be aged between 12 and 30 years old; be a member of the Triathlon London or SE region IRC squads, Triathlon London Academy, South East Region Academy, Triathlon England talent squad or GB age-group team; and live and train in the Triathlon London or SE regions. Successful applicants will typically receive grants of up to £1,000 per year.

AE If Dave was here today what do you think he would think of four girls riding from Lands End to John o Groats?

EW He would absolutely love it! Dave was so inspiring and such a nice guy and would probably have asked to do a men’s team too!

To read more about Dave or the SportsAid fund visit the justgiving website at www.justgiving.com/daveaitchisonfund_lejog_ttt